Subject Area - Course Number:RELIGST 340Cross-Listing

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Curriculum Proposal Form #3

New Course

Effective Term:{Select from drop-down list} 2123 (Summer 2012)2127 (Fall 2012)2130 (Winterim 2013)2131 (Spring 2013)2133 (Summer 2013)2137 (Fall 2013)2140 (Winterim 2014)2141 (Spring 2014)2143 (Summer 2014)2147 (Fall 2014)2150 (Winterim 2015)2151 (Spring 2015)2153 (Summer 2015)2157 (Fall 2015)2160 (Winterim 2016)2161 (Spring 2016)2163 (Summer 2016)2167 (Fall 2016)2170 (Winterim 2017)2171 (Spring 2017)2173 (Summer 2017)2177 (Fall 2017)2180 (Winterim 2018)2181 (Spring 2018)

Subject Area - Course Number:RELIGST 340Cross-listing:

(See Note #1 below)

Course Title:(Limited to 65 characters)Evil and Religion

25-Character Abbreviation: Evil and Religion

Sponsor(s): David Simmons

Department(s):Philosophy & Religious Studies

College(s):{Select from drop-down list} Arts and CommunicationBusiness and EconomicsEducationLetters and SciencesInterdisciplinaryGrad Studies & Cont Ed

Consultation took place:NA Yes (list departments and attach consultation sheet)

Departments:

Programs Affected:

Is paperwork complete for those programs? (Use "Form 2" for Catalog & Academic Report updates)

NA Yeswill be at future meeting

Prerequisites:none

Grade Basis:Conventional LetterS/NC or Pass/Fail

Course will be offered:Part of Load Above Load

On CampusOff Campus - Location

College:{Select from drop-down list} Arts and CommunicationBusiness and EconomicsEducationLetters and SciencesGrad Studies and Cont EdInterdisciplinary Dept/Area(s):Philosophy & Religious Studies

Instructor:David Simmons

Note: If the course is dual-listed, instructor must be a member of Grad Faculty.

Check if the Course is to Meet Any of the Following:

Technological Literacy Requirement Writing Requirement

Diversity General Education Option: Select one:NoneGAGEGHGLGIGMGPGS

Note: For the Gen Ed option, the proposal should address how this course relates to specific core courses, meets the goals of General Education in providing breadth, and incorporates scholarship in the appropriate field relating to women and gender.

Credit/Contact Hours: (per semester)

Total lab hours:0Total lecture hours:48

Number of credits:3Total contact hours:48

Can course be taken more than once for credit? (Repeatability)

No Yes If "Yes", answer the following questions:

No of times in major:No of credits in major:

No of times in degree:No of credits in degree:

Revised 10/021 of 9

Proposal Information:(Procedures for form #3)

Course justification:

This course provides students with an opportunity to explore one of the perennial problems confronting the world’s religions—the existence of evil and suffering—in a way that encourages a deeper engagement with familiar religions of the Western tradtion (primarily Christianity, but also Judaism and Islam) as well as learning the critical work of developing categories for comparison between religious traditions. Learning the uses and limitations of heuristic tools for comparison, such as the typologies of evil developed by Paul Ricoeur, is a fundamental component of the study of religion and a critical thinking skill that take a great deal of sophistication to master. In close reading of primary texts of a single tradition, from the Bible to literary representations of evil, students will be challenged to see diversity and complexity within that tradition, while in comparisons to religions that are not monotheistic, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, students may begin to see unity in diversity concerning representations of evil across cultures. Finally, using categories of comparison to think in different ways about the confrontation of evil within and between religious traditions can lead to a critical evaluation of the utility of such comparative tools, as well as to an understanding of how categories of thought can come into play dynamically rather than remain statically descriptive.

Such a comparative and interdisciplinary course is currently needed in the World Religions curriculum, and a survey of current and prospective World Religions minors indicated that a course on this subject matter could be quite popular. As one of the instructors of RELIGST 252 The Bible as Literature, I am also aware that students sometimes struggle with thinking about the religious traditions in which they were raised historically and critically. This is particularly true of topics that seem fundamental to their worldview, such as the nature of evil.

Relationship to program assessment objectives:

The program objectives of the World Religions minor are:

1)gain a basic understanding of the world’s major religious traditions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam,Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and Shinto

2)be able to describe the historical origins, key dates, philosophies, practices, ethics, symbols and major thinkers in these traditions

3)be able to summarize the fundamental teachings of these traditions

4)be able to critically appraise the relationship between religious traditions and their social and cultural contexts

5)be able to recognize the diversity of philosophies and practices within the major religious traditions

6)be able to analyze religious writings, symbols, and practices using recognized scholarly and hermeneutical principles

7)be able torecognize presuppositions underlying different ethical systems and worldviews, including students’ own

While the content of the course will serve to help students better understand several world religions, as a 300-level course, Evil and Religion moves beyond learning the basic content of Objectives 1-3, and enhances Objectives 5-7. To the extent that understanding texts in their historical origins is important for understanding the development over time of certain conceptions or representations of religion within and between cultures, the course will also meet Objective 4, although social scientific or anthropological study is not the focus. In their engagement of primary and secondary texts, students will be encouraged to recognize diversity within religious traditions (Objective 5), but also learn how scholars frame their analysis of scripture, myth, literature and other texts in the history of ideas (Objective 6). Finally, a crticial evaluation of how evil is represented and confronted in the traditions studies necessarily involves moral and ethical reflection (Objective 7).

Relationship to the Goals of General Education: This course is designed to present students with the opportunity to read, engage, analyze, and discuss a range of primary texts and secondary scholarship from various disciplines in order to lead students to an informed understanding of diverse cultural worldviews, the history of their engagement with the fundamental questions of human existence, the impact of their own cultural heritage on these cultures and themselves, and the relationship between each of these. As a result, students will be explicitly prompted to “think critically and analytically integrate and synthesize knowledge, and draw conclusions from complex information” (Goal 1); “to understand and appreciate the cultural diversity of the U.S. and other contries, and liv responsibly in an interdependent world” (Goal 3); “to acquire a base of knowledge common to educated persons and the capacity to expand that basis over their lifetimes” (Goal 4); “to communicate effectively in written, oral, and symbolic form” (Goal 5); and to develop the skills necessary to “make sound ethical and value judgments based on the development of a person value system, on an understanding of shared cultural heritage, and knowledge of past success, failures, and consequences of individual roles and societal choices” (Goal 2). As a course that engages in close reading and interpretation, the cental focus is the improvement of the thinking, reasoning, and problem solving skills of each student, enhanve the curriculum of the General Education Program.

Relationship to the Core General Education Courses: As a course that traces the historical development of religious concepts of evil from their origins, employs a variety of methodological approaches to the study of religion, and interprets religious, philosophical and literary texts, Evil and Religion has the closest ties to the inderdisciplinary World of Ideas—in fact, several course objectives were modified or borrowed from GENED 390. To the extent that the symbolism and representation of evil presents fruitful subjects for are and its appreciation around the world, from the Garden of Eden to the Devil to the goddess Kali, the course could also be enhanced by a student’s background in World of the Arts.

Relationship to Scholarship on Women and Gender: There are three units in which women and gender are the lens through which we think about the representation of evil: the tradition of predominantly Christian interpretation of Eve as the orgin of sin; the meditation on women as disgusting corpses in Buddhist monastic practices; and the examination of evil in Hindu mythology through the work of Wendy Doniger, a feminist scholar of Hinduism whose works focus on the construction and representation of gender in the world’s myths. There is voluminous feminist scholarship on Genesis 1-3 from which to draw in the discussion of Eve, and students will read excerpts from Liz Wilson’s Charming Cadavers on the subject of the feminization of evil in Buddhist practice that has fascination parallels to the Western tradition.

Budgetary impact:

Minimal. This course will be part of normal rotation. It will not affect the number of World of Ideas sections taught. Current library resources are sufficient for this course.

Course description: (50 word limit)

This course presents a variety of ways of examining the problem of evil in several of the world’s religious traditions—as a philosophical and theological problem for understanding the relationship between God and human beings in monotheistic religions, but also in broader comparative perspective through the confrontation of evil in polytheistic and non-theistic religions.

If dual listed, list graduate level requirements for the following:

1. Content (e.g., What are additional presentation/project requirements?)
2. Intensity (e.g., How are the processes and standards of evaluation different for graduates and undergraduates? )
3. Self-Directed (e.g., How are research expectations differ for graduates and undergraduates?)

Course objectives and tentative course syllabus:

Course objectives:

• Understand the ways religious ideas shape their perception of the world.
• Recognize the historical development of conceptions of evil in a variety of religious traditions.
• recognize the diversity of philosophies and practices within major religious traditions
• Refine their critical and analytical thinking skills in oral and written forms.
• Deal intelligently with questions and issues concerning ethics and values.
• analyze religious writings and symbols using recognized scholarly and hermeneutical principles
• recognize presuppositions underlying different ethical systems and worldviews, including students’ own

Tentative course syllabus:

Week 1 Introduction: Theodicy as the Problem of Evil

Week 2 The Symbolism of Evil: Defilement, Sin, Guilt

Reading: Selections from Paul Ricouer, The Symbolism of Evil

Week 3 The Typology of Evil in Religious Myth

Reading: Selections from Paul Ricouer, The Symbolism of Evil

Week 4 The “Adamic” Myth and the “Eschatological” Vision of History

Reading: Selections from Paul Ricouer, The Symbolism of Evil

Genesis 1-4

Week 5 Is Eve the Origin of Evil?

Reading: Selections from Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent

James Kugel, "Adam and Eve," from The Bible As It Was

Genesis 1-4

Week 6 The Representation of Evil in Buddhism

Reading: Selections from Liz Wilson, Charming Cadavers

Week 7 Exam #1

Historical Overview of the Emergence of Satan as the Archenemy of God

Reading: Selections from Kenneth Cragg, Readings in the Qur’an

Week 8 Representations of Evil in the Bible

Reading: Selections from Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan

Week 9 Milton’s Satan and the Drama of Creation

Reading: Selections from Paradise Lost

Week 10 Mephistopheles: The Exiled Soul and Salvation Through Knowledge

Reading: Selections from Jeffrey Burton Russell, Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World

Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus

Week 11 The Confrontation of Evil in Hinduism

Reading: Selections from Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology

Week 12 Exam #2

Introduction to the Book of Job

Week 13 The Wicked God and the “Tragic” Vision of Existence

Reading: The Book of Job

Week 14 Job: Evil as Suffering

Reading: The Book of Job

Week 15 Conclusion: Typologies of Evil in Western and Eastern Religious Traditions

Bibliography:(Key or essential references only. Normally the bibliography should be no more than one or two pages in length.)

Kenneth Cragg, Readings in the Qur’an (Collins, 1988)

Andrew Delbanco, The Death of Satan (Noonday, 1995)

René Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Johns Hopkins, 1977)

René Girard, The Scapegoat (Johns Hopkins, 1986)

James Kugel, The Bible as it Was (Harvard, 1997)

Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus

John Milton, Paradise Lost

Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology (University of California, 1976)

Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (Random House, 1988)

Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan (Random House, 1995)

Paul Riceour, The Symbolism of Evil (Beacon, 1967)

Jeffrey Burton Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Cornell, 1977)

Jeffrey Burton Russell, Satan: The Early Christian Tradition (Cornell, 1981)

Jeffrey Burton Russell, Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages (Cornell, 1984)

Jeffrey Burton Russell, Mephistophleles: The Devil in the Modern World (Cornell, 1986)

Regina Schwartz, The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism (University of Chicago, 1997)

David Shulman, The Hungry God: Hindu Tales of Filicide and Devotion (University of Chicago, 1993)

Jon Michael Spencer, Blues and Evil (University of Tennessee, 1993)

Liz Wilson, Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literarture (University of Chicago, 1996)

The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is dedicated to a safe, supportive and non-discriminatory learning environment. It is the responsibility of all undergraduate and graduate students to familiarize themselves with University policies regarding Special Accommodations, Academic Misconduct, Religious Beliefs Accommodation, Discrimination and Absence for University Sponsored Events (for details please refer to the Schedule of Classes; the “Rights and Responsibilities” section of the Undergraduate Catalog; the Academic Requirements and Policies and the Facilities and Services sections of the Graduate Catalog; and the “Student Academic Disciplinary Procedures (UWS Chapter 14); and the “Student Nonacademic Disciplinary Procedures" (UWS Chapter 17).

Course Objectives and tentative course syllabuswith mandatory information(paste syllabus below):

Evil and Religion RELIGST 340

Course Instructor:David

Office:Laurentide Hall, Room 4213 Office Phone: 472-1232

Office Hours:Wednesdays 10:00 AM–1:00 PM

Thursdays, 2:00–3:00 PM other times by appointment

Course Description

This course presents a variety of ways of examining the problem of evil in several of the world’s religious traditions—as a philosophical and theological problem for understanding the relationship between God and human beings in monotheistic religions, but also in broader comparative perspective through the confrontation of evil in polytheistic and non-theistic religions. Using a framework for categorizing the mythologies of evil from the philospher Paul Ricoeur’s work The Symbolism of Evil, this course will study in depth the emergence of Satan in Western scriptural and literary traditions, and challenge these categories in comparison to Hindu and Buddhist representations of evil. Finally, through close reading of the Book of Job, we will see how the categories of religious thinking about evil can be dynamic rather than static.

Course Objectives

This course will enhance students' ability to do the following:

• Understand the ways religious ideas shape their perception of the world.
• Recognize the historical development of conceptions of evil in a variety of religious traditions.
• recognize the diversity of philosophies and practices within major religious traditions
• Refine their critical and analytical thinking skills in oral and written forms.
• Deal intelligently with questions and issues concerning ethics and values.
• analyze religious writings and symbols using recognized scholarly and hermeneutical principles
• recognize presuppositions underlying different ethical systems and worldviews, including students’ own

Course requirements and grading

Course grades will be based on attendance and participation (15%); short reflection papers (20%); two exams (20% each) and one final paper(25%) of no fewer than five but no more than seven pages, typed and double-spaced.

A: 100-95; A-: 94-90

B+: 89-87; B: 86-83; B-: 82-80

C+: 79-77; C: 76-73; C-: 72-70

D: 69-60

F: 59 and below

The grading system and criteria for evaluation will be posted on D2L discussed in detail as the course proceeds.

Course policies

Attendance and Participation: You are expected to attend all scheduled class sessionsprepared to discuss the reading assignment for that day. Sleeping, social networking, texting, or other disruptions during class may be counted as absences. Unexcused absences and repeated tardiness count against your attendance and participation grade. Class discussion will be dependent on your preparation and willingness to contribute your thoughts and ideas. If you do not do the reading assignments and avoid class discussion, this may detract from the grade you get for attendance and participation.

Excused Absences: If you miss a scheduled class for any reason, you will be excused for the absence only upon submission of a written summary (2 pages) of the reading assignment for that day. Summaries for each class you miss will be due at the beginning of the next class you are able to attend. There will be no exceptions and no extensions for the submission of summaries.

Plagiarism: Failure to properly attribute your sources for original work, deliberately or not, is academically dishonest and intellectually lazy. You are expected to know what plagiarism is and how to avoid it – if you are unsure of what constitutes plagiarism, please ask either the instructor or a university librarian. Plagiarism will not be tolerated in this class. New technology has made it much easier to detect instances of plagiarism, and if you are caught plagiarizing material for your papers you may fail the course.

“One Favor” Policy: If you find yourself in a situation where you need to ask me to make an exception to any of the above, choose wisely.

University policies

The University of Wisconsin—Whitewater is dedicated to a safe, supportive and non-discriminatory learning environment. It is the responsibility of all undergraduate and graduate students to familiarize themselves with University policies regarding Special Accommodations, Academic Misconduct, Religious Beliefs Accommodation, Discrimination and Absence for University Sponsored Events (for details please refer to the Schedule of Classes; the “Rights and Responsibilities” section of the Undergraduate Catalog; the Academic Requirements and Policies and the Facilities and Services sections of the Graduate Catalog; and the “Student Academic Disciplinary Procedures” (UWS Chapter 14); and the “Student Nonacademic Disciplinary Procedures” (UWS Chapter 17)).